He watched her get up from the table after studying him for a long moment. She motioned to the bed, not trusting herself to say anything. He sighed, setting his hands on the table and pushing his chair back. He let her cuff him again, and he didn't say anything. She hurried out of the room, leaving him to ponder her brother's murder and wonder what remained in the other two folders. Another thought came to him. He had felt no threat from her and he still didn't, but what was going to happen once her final revelation was made...and why was she making them at all? Was it the news article that drove her to single him out for this? Did this decades-old murder really have any relevance to her present-day crimes? He would have to wait until she returned to find out any of this, and there was no telling when she'd come back.
He looked out the window. Morning? Shit...it wasn't morning. He wasn't wearing a watch, but judging from the sun that was streaming in the window it was probably around three or four in the afternoon. That meant it was close to eighteen hours since he'd left the squad room the night before. Eames knew long ago that something was wrong, even if she didn't know what. She would be looking for him. But where would she look? Certainly not in an old farmhouse upstate. He was entirely at the mercy of his captor until he could figure out some way to get in touch with Eames. He wasn't liking that very much at all. He hated not being in control of his own destiny. He had spent too many years living with uncertainty to ever willingly take a step backwards. Yet here he was...once more in the grips of an uncertain future, the outcome of which lay in someone else's hands. And he didn't even know her name...
Eames was pacing the conference room, lost in memories and troubled thoughts, when Ross came in. "I've put out the word that we have a missing officer. Go home, Eames. There's nothing more you can do. Don't follow your partner's lead and run yourself into the ground like he did when you were missing. That won't help anyone."
She ignored his suggestion, just like Goren had last year. "We know he was in Allentown at 10:45 last night. That's almost 24 hours ago. She could have him in Canada by now, or Florida, or some God-forsaken cornfield in Nebraska..." She stopped. She was tired, angry, frustrated and sick with worry, and each emotion was struggling to dominate the others.
Ross watched her for a moment, sensing the turmoil she was feeling. This didn't call for a heavy hand but rather a soft touch, a side he hesitated to show the people he commanded. These circumstances were different though. As it was, Eames seemed certain that he didn't like her partner, but that was not the case. He took a hard line with Goren because that was what the man needed. He was not going to baby a temperamental genius. He appreciated the man's brilliance and he was finally coming to realize that the instability that tempered that sharp intelligence was more fiction than fact. He might very well have been unstable at one time, which is where he imagined the rumors originated, rumors he was beginning to regret ever putting stock in. He had gotten off to a shaky start with Goren because of them. But whatever instability he might have experienced in that past was gone, and in its place was Eames. Ross fully recognized that Eames was the grounding force to her partner's astounding leaps of logic. His mind remained well ahead of the normal men who followed, but Eames was as close behind him as a person could get, and Goren depended on her. He was unable to read anything into the true nature of their relationship but he knew one thing for absolute certain: whatever they had between them, it worked. They had weathered an extremely difficult year, and they came out of it intact as a team, emotionally scarred but healing. And the only salve they needed was one another.
"Eames...he'll be all right. Your partner can talk circles around the best of us. He's going to be okay."
She studied the captain. That was about as close as he'd ever come to complimenting Goren. But how could he know he'd be okay when she didn't? She didn't appreciate empty platitudes, but she did realize that he was trying. And he was right about his ability to talk his way out of things. How many times had he soothed Ron Carver's ruffled feathers with just the right words to pull his ass out of whatever fire he'd gotten himself into in the first place? "I wish I knew he'd be okay, captain."
"You, of all people, can't be losing faith in him."
"Never. But the time is going to come when words won't be enough. And if I'm not there to back him up, where is that going to leave him? How am I supposed to live with that?"
"The same way he had to when you were missing."
She was quiet for a long moment. She had not discussed this with Ross before. "How did he handle it?"
"How did he tell you he handled it?"
She remembered. He told her that the light he had followed for the past half a decade had been put underneath a bushel basket and he was left out in the dark, floundering to find his way in a world that was no longer familiar. "He was lost."
Ross nodded. "Pretty much. He doesn't do so well without you, Eames."
She looked at the television screen, a moment frozen in time. His badge was in mid-air, halfway to its hiding place on the floor. She was coming to realize that she didn't so so well by herself any more either. She was only half of a greater whole, and only Goren could fill the role of that other half. "Did you put out a BOLO on his car?"
"Yes. One of two things is going to happen. Either we'll find him or he'll figure out some way to find us. Either way we're going to get him back. Trust me."
That was easier said than done, but she bit back the reply that sat on the tip of her tongue. Pissing him off would not help find Goren. She returned her attention to the video footage that was now ingrained in her memory, nudging the scene forward a frame at a time. She was resolutely determined to keep searching until they found him. The only problem was she had no earthly idea where to look.
It was well after dark when she returned. She said nothing as she set two styrofoam boxes on the table. Uncuffing him, she let him use the bathroom before they sat back at the table to eat. He wondered if she was beginning to trust him. She hadn't stood outside the door this time, returning downstairs to retrieve two large styrofoam cups. As he approached her where she was waiting just outside the bedroom door, she said, "I hope cola's all right. I got you a hamburger and fries."
He muttered a thank you and again they ate in silence. He wondered where she had been all evening, but he hesitated to ask. Whatever she had done, she'd done it with his car, and that could work for him or against him. If anything negative came of it, he wondered if Ross would presume he was involved. Eames would know better, but unfortunately she wasn't the one calling the shots. How much would it suck if he got out of this ordeal by being arrested and detained until it all got straightened out? No, Eames wouldn't let it come to that. They would find his badge and when word got to her, she would know something was wrong. He wasn't sure what she would be able to do about it, and he hated like hell to worry her, but at least she would know he was all right. He hated causing her any more grief; he'd caused her enough this past year.
He admitted that he had not handled his mother's terminal diagnosis and final illness well, and he had taken that out on Eames. He regretted it, but even though it had initially damaged their relationship, when the rift was sealed, their friendship was stronger than it had been before. Deep affection had sprung from the well of his intense grief, once the fog had drifted away. She had stayed by him through the entire ordeal of his mother's death, absorbing not only his grief but his anger as well. And the affection forged from his adversity ran deep. Now freed from the prison of his responsibilities, he was able to redirect the emotion and attention his mother had tried to monopolize...and there was Eames, a willing target...
But there was one thing he had not shared with her, or with anyone. Something he just could not bring himself to discuss though it remained stubbornly in his thoughts and dreams. Mark Ford Brady was dead, and it was oddly ironic how his death had intersected with his mother's as his life had intersected with hers. Uncle Mark...his dreams now seemed to be snatches of memories from forgotten moments of his childhood which dissolved into nightmare moments of more recent origin. How could he ever tell Eames what his mother had revealed to him before she died? How could something like that not taint her opinion of him or drive an irremovable wedge between them? It was bad enough when he thought his father was a gambling, womanizing drunk...but to be the bastard son of a serial rapist and murderer? That was unforgivable, even to him. How could he expect her to get past it when he couldn't?
She drew him from his thoughts when she set aside her half-finished dinner. He was done, eating by rote and not from any real driven hunger. He closed the empty container in front of him and set it aside. She took it and placed it with her container by the door. Then she returned to her chair and squared the files in front of her, studying them with sad eyes. She slid the thinner of the two files toward the center of the table. Goren took it and flipped it open. The top page was a photograph of two people. He recognized her and he assumed the man was a boyfriend or husband. They stood beside one another and his arm was wrapped protectively around her shoulders; both were laughing...happy times he surmised she would never see again.
He looked up at her, taken slightly aback by the look of sorrow that deeply etched her features. "His name was Harry. We met in college and were married for ten years. We had a strong marriage, a loving relationship. He made my life complete, until the day he was taken from it. That was last year."
He frowned and finally spoke. "Another murder?"
"No."
She slid the last file toward him. He hesitated before flipping it open. The picture sitting on top of this file was a little girl. She had her uncle's crooked smile, minus the mischief. Two missing front teeth graced her wide smile, which lingered at the edge of laughter. Bright eyes the color of sapphires shone from the photo and her blonde hair was drawn into pigtails. He raised his eyes from the picture to see fresh tears trickling down her cheeks. "She was six when we buried her." She nodded at the file. "You'll find the same things in that file that you found in Connor's...police reports, the autopsy results, newspaper clippings...We lived in Connecticut when she went missing from the front yard. They found her body three weeks later. They also found the man who killed her. The transcript of his trial is in there. It's horrifying. He gives intimate details of the things he did to her, every one of which was supported by the coroner's findings. Harry...couldn't handle it. Before the trial was over...he committed suicide. Guess who found him."
He scrubbed a hand over his chin, disturbed by the circumstances of this woman's tragedy. "I-I'm sorry."
"Everyone is sorry, detective. The police, the prosecutor, the judge and jury...everyone."
He shuffled through the papers to find the disposition of the trial. Guilty...and he was sentenced to death. Something else caught his eye from the prosecutor's closing arguments. He was a repeat offender, and he'd raped and killed before. Still on parole, he struck again, and this beautiful little girl died because of it. The pieces were falling into place now, and he understood. He continued looking through the pages of the file. Steven Thomas Turner, a 48 year old drifter with a long criminal history that turned violent when he was thirty. Fifteen years in prison and he struck again, four weeks after he was paroled. The rapes and murders of two women got him sent to prison, good behavior and a psychiatrist's certification of rehabilitation got him paroled. Rehabilitation, my ass, he mused. Violent sex offenders didn't rehabilitate. The three strikes ruling was fine in practice, but this child's horrible, violent death was his second strike. Just like Landis and Hernandez. He raised his eyes to look at her. "Two wrongs don't make a right," he said softly.
"I wanted you to understand."
"I do understand, but I can't condone what you did."
"I'm not looking for that. You said some harsh things in the paper, and you were wrong about that. Everyone who was important to me was taken away by men who had killed before."
"The justice system isn't perfect, and the prisons are overcrowded."
"So release non-violent offenders," she snapped. "Send home the tax evaders and deadbeat dads. Don't let rapists and murderers back on the streets."
"You're preaching to the choir. I do my job."
"I know you do. I've done my homework, Detective Goren. Your arrests have a very strong conviction rate. That's why I wanted to talk to you, alone and outside the context of an interrogation room."
"Are you going to turn yourself in?"
"No. I have work to do."
He shook his head. "You're going about this the wrong way."
Anger flashed in her eyes. "I'm going about this the only way that works, detective. It takes years to get any legislation through the system, and then it becomes subjective in the courts. There are loopholes in the law that a Mack truck will fit through. I just plug the loopholes."
He looked at the files in front of him. "With a gun. I can't..."
Her voice was bitter. "I know. You can't condone what I've done. It seemed to me that you were interested in justice, and in what's right. I guess I read you wrong."
His head snapped up, anger coloring his tone. "I've spent my life pursuing justice. Don't tell me I'm not interested in justice." He slammed a hand on the table. "I do my job and I do it within the limits of the law."
"I am not faulting your end of it. It's the courts that fail us."
"Then why the hell am I here?"
She shook her head and stood up. He also got to his feet, studying her with intense eyes. She came around the table and faced off with him. "Because I thought you were different. I was wrong." Bracing her hands on his chest, she shoved him. He stumbled back into the dresser, which he hit hard enough to rebound off. His body hit hers and he grabbed her to keep her from falling. She yanked herself away from him and snarled, "Damn you."
"I'm sorry, but you're the one who shoved me."
She pointed toward the bed. "Sit down or I will shoot you."
He hesitated for a moment but then did what she told him to. Her emotional state made her unpredictable and he didn't want to push the wrong button. Right now, he did not doubt she would shoot him if provoked. Grief and anger had pushed her over the edge, and he wasn't sure there was any getting her back.
She cuffed his hand back to the head board and left the room, slamming the door. Ten minutes later, he heard his car start and as the tires spun and squealed, she drove away. She wasn't coming back. He looked at the table, at the folders that remained where he had set them. They were the only clues he had to her identity...but they were enough. Unstable and over the edge, she was now a danger, not only to the criminals she sought to punish for her pain, but to herself as well.
He had no doubt that he would really be in a world of hurt but for one thing: his sleight of hand ability. It had been no accident when he rebounded off the dresser into her. Reaching into his pocket, he pulled his cell phone out and, praying he had a signal, he flipped it open. With a soft sigh of relief, he called his partner.
